Digimon: The Movie is a Hot Mess (I Still Love It)

25 years ago, a certain film was released in cinemas. Down in the trenches on the 6th October 2000, many parents were dragged to the theatre after being badgered by their children. I was not one of them, but I was one of the ones who badgered my mum until she finally gave in and bought it on DVD several years later. Before that, I just watched it religiously on VHS at my childhood best friend’s house. But in commemoration of the anniversary, I decided to watch it again.

Did I watch it on the actual date of the anniversary? Yes. However, I believe that in true Digimon fashion, watching Digimon: The Movie and then being late to the party is just how it should be enjoyed. For you see, nothing about the film should work, and admittedly, it’s a film that Saban Entertainment and Fox put out because Digimon was one of their most successful franchises at the time.

Sure, Saban had the Power Rangers — of which the Pink Power Ranger is referenced in terms of Tai trying to take Kari’s for her friend’s birthday party — but Digimon was something special. Digimon hadn’t actually had a feature-length movie like Pokémon, but that didn’t stop them from mashing up three different original video animations (OVAs) to make a barely comprehensible plot that, by all means, shouldn’t have worked.

Let me explain... Willis, a digidestined from America, met his partners, Terriermon and Cocomon, eight years prior to the series, when he was (presumably) three years old. He then, at seven or eight, managed to program Diaboromon who… is attacked by a virus and then hurls nukes at Colorado and Odaiba (because Tai and Izzy are blatantly in the way of his plans). It makes the Digimon Adventure OVA more awkward because we know that this is the prologue to the original series, but it just feels like exposition, in spite of being an incredibly good short film in its own right.

While they’re all linked, it suggests that the Koromon that Tai and Kari met is the same one, as Tai refers to how he doesn’t have a whistle to awaken his battered WarGreymon. It also suggests Joe, Mimi, and Izzy already know each other, when in Digimon Adventure, none of them remember knowing one another. It is heavy with shipping fuel, such as focusing on the Tai/Sora and Joe/Mimi relationships. Also, we’ve got a number of TK/Kari hints in the Golden Digimentals segment of the movie.

Willis’ role in Our War Game is shoehorned in to make sense of why these three films would relate. There’s eight years ago, where Tai and Kari are six and three respectively, then it’s four years later with Our War Game that doesn’t align. It’s meant to take place a year after the series, so it should be six years later. Tai’s supposed to be twelve, with an eleven-year-old Izzy. Then, they go to the present day, which should be in 2002, and as Ken is not with the team, it should be during the rest of the series.

By all accounts, the only saving grace of Digimon: The Movie is the fact that the soundtrack slaps. I can’t say that the soundtrack hasn’t influenced my music taste to the present day; we’ve got the likes of the Barenaked Ladies, Smash Mouth, The Rockafeller Skank (or as I refer to it, that song that goes Vauxhall Brother) and of course, a brilliant cover of Kids in America, along with numerous other bangers that either appear in the series or in the end credits. There are no bad tracks, and mixed with Mamoru Hosoda’s seamless direction in the original OVAs? It works so well.

While the plot is a mess, I have to admit that the humour can’t be denied. Where else would we find jokes about Tai’s mother’s ridiculous healthy recipes? The drama of Tai having thrown up in Sora’s hat? And the absolute madness that is Matt and TK pretending to be best friends with random strangers to use their computer. It’s hilarious, especially watching Willis and Davis’ interactions as Willis flirts with both Yolei and Kari, much to his dismay.

With this in mind, I can’t deny that Digimon: The Movie is an absolutely hot mess that doesn’t align with any timeline whatsoever. However, I can’t deny that Willis in the dub is one of my favourite characters, and I loved how, when in doubt, everyone has a mysterious Uncle Fred.

So, even after 25 years, what can we say about Digimon: The Movie? Well, I will say they’ve learned from that, as any future films that appeared were designed to not be smashed together. But it’s a relic of its time. Although the Angela Anaconda short? That should have been banished to the depths of the internet. No child or adult wanted to watch that.